


The Shieldmaiden Queen and the Warrior Priest

by MidtownKitten



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Angst and Porn, Canon Compliant, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-23 13:44:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14333694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MidtownKitten/pseuds/MidtownKitten
Summary: "Are you sure you want to sin again?"They were born to be enemies, but when fate throws the Shieldmaiden Queen and the Warrior Priest together, neither can resist the temptation to defy their destinies, even if it's just for one night.





	The Shieldmaiden Queen and the Warrior Priest

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically a re-telling of S5/E9... with a few additional (explicit!) details imagined between these two amazing characters!

LAGERTHA

_What a terrible waste._

Lagertha scanned the bloodstained field, scattered with the bodies of the dead and slowly dying still. Most of the men who lay in the dirt were those who had fought for Ivar and King Harald; for that at least, she should feel some pride. But as she began to make her way across the field, stepping over and around so many corpses who only hours ago had been mere boys in the prime of their lives, she felt only sadness. These were not foreign enemies invading Viking lands - these were all good, strong Viking men who simply had the misfortune of fighting for the wrong side. Lagertha’s foot slipped in a pool of blood and she bent to close the eyes of the boy who had spilled it. He was younger than her own son, Bjorn. Did he have a wife and babes who would weep for him? She sighed wearily as she stood. _What a terrible waste_ , she thought again.

A sword half buried in mud, but still glinting in the light of the setting sun, caught her attention. She picked it up and examined the blade. Viking steel, finely crafted and sharpened with skill and care. On one side, the hammer of Thor was etched into the metal, and on the other… Lagertha frowned as she looked at it more closely, but there was no mistaking the symbol. The beloved cross of the Christian god. She turned over the man who lay next to the sword, and to her surprise, he coughed faintly when she did. His eyes opened briefly, just long enough to lock onto hers, and then closed again as he sank back into delirium. It was only a moment, but it was enough for their piercing blue to reach inside of her and stop her breath.

“This one is alive!” she called to the men working to clear the bodies from the field. They came over, followed by Ubbe, the second oldest son of the legendary Ragnar Lothbrok. “Who is he?” she asked.

Ubbe scowled and replied, “He is a Christian Priest, but he can fight. He used to fight for King Aethelwulf. Now it seems he fights for Ivar.”

Ubbe drew his knife, but Lagertha lifted her arm to stop him. “Save this one if he can be saved,” she told the men, and they hoisted him up, dragging him off the field between them.

“Why save him?” Ubbe demanded. “What good is he to us?”

“I don’t know yet,” Lagertha said, and continued on her way, carrying the Priest’s sword at her side.

 

HEAHMUND

First there had been only darkness. Now there was only pain. But the pain meant he was alive, and so Heahmund forced himself to feel it, to leave that all-consuming darkness in which he felt nothing, and move towards the light and the noise and the pain. He opened his eyes. He lay in a tent, his armor removed and most of his trousers cut away, leaving him all but naked to the cool air. His head pounded, but his face seemed unscathed. His bruised ribs protested every breath, but nothing felt broken beyond repair. Then he tried to move his legs and had to clench his jaw to keep from crying out in agony. He remembered the Viking axe cutting him down from behind, slicing through his flesh, before he had fallen to the ground and descended into the darkness. Someone had stitched the wounds and bandaged them, but he knew his fate was in God’s hands. He might never be able to stand tall in battle again. He might never be able to walk again at all. An image of Ivar, dragging himself across the floor like a mad, multi-limbed snake suddenly crossed his mind and he shuddered. Surely that could not be the Lord’s plan. Not for him.

A woman with fair hair and black-rimmed eyes entered the tent. She tended to the few other men who lay about, and then turned her attention on him. She poured something from a flagon into a cup and brought it to his lips, saying nothing. He inhaled the sweet scent of wine, but when he drank, it left a strange and bitter taste in his mouth. His pain began to fade as he felt the darkness closing in on him once more. His eyes were impossibly heavy but he struggled to focus on the woman’s face.

“Are you Lagertha?” he asked her.

“Do I look like a Queen to you?” came her cold response.

Suddenly a different face cut through the fog that blanketed his senses. Sapphires framed in gold. Softness and strength. The face that had lifted him from the battlefield. The face of an angel. Or of a Queen.

“No,” he said, before the world around him disappeared and he knew no more.

 

LAGERTHA

It had been three days since Lagertha had defeated Ivar and Harald’s forces, but she knew they would already be rebuilding their strength, planning for the next attack. She sat at the table with Bjorn and Ubbe, only half-listening to them go back and forth over the best course of action. Attack again while their enemies were weakened, try again to negotiate, retreat to Kattegat and hope Ivar did not follow - no strategy solved the true problem. Ivar would not rest until Lagertha was dead, and if he succeeded in his quest, what choice would Bjorn have but to seek retribution for the murder of his mother and the rightful Queen? And so it would continue, on and on, an endless cycle of vengeance, until all Viking lands had wasted away and there were no new lands left to conquer or beating hearts left to conquer them. _This can’t be what Ragnar would have wanted_ , Lagertha thought.

“Of course not, but what else can we do?” Lagertha looked up, startled by her son’s voice. Had she spoken her thoughts aloud?

“Ivar will never let go of his hatred for you,” Ubbe said. “You don’t know him. He cannot be reasoned with. The only way to end this is to kill him. Or he will kill you.” Ubbe’s voice darkened with a grim certainty as he said, “He will kill us all.”

“What do you want to do?” Bjorn asked her.

Lagertha looked from one of Ragnar’s sons to the other. She saw so much of him in both of them, but truth be told, she saw so much of him in Ivar too. And that terrified her. Perhaps that was why she had let him live when she could easily have ended his life many times. _Maybe it is his fate to live,_ she thought. _Which means it must be mine to die_.

“I don’t know,” she replied.

Lagertha stood from the table and began to walk through the camp, lost in her own thoughts. Seemingly of their own will, her feet carried her to the tent where Torvi cared for the wounded. She met Bjorn’s wife on her way out and over her shoulder, Lagertha saw the Priest, no longer half-dead and drifting in and out of consciousness, but sitting up, awake and alert and watching her with veiled eyes.

“His wounds will heal,” Torvi said. She seemed to want to say more, but then pursed her lips and left Lagertha alone with the Christian.

“You saved my life,” he said to her as she entered the tent. “I’m grateful.”

“Are you?” she asked. “Wouldn’t you rather be in your heaven with your god?”

“I love God,” The Priest replied. “But I also love life.”

“What do you love about it?”

The corners of the Priest’s mouth turned up and he cocked his head slightly as he considered the answer. There was something so familiar about the expression to Lagertha, something that felt strangely intimate.

“I love its beauty and its mystery,” the Priest said. “I love its joy and its pain and its pleasure.”

Lagertha drew a chair so that she sat next to the Priest, close enough that she could have reached out and touched him. “What do you know of pleasure?” she asked.

He paused, then said, “I have lived many lives and known many things. And I confess, my passions have often led me into sin. Sometimes they still do.”

Lagertha shook her head. “Your god must either be a tyrant or a fool to make pleasure a sin. Our gods are just the opposite - they ignite our passion and delight in our pleasure. They expect no less of us than to love each other freely, as our desire commands us.”

The Priest leaned forward. “You feel no guilt?”

Lagertha leaned in as well, an inch from his lips. “None.”

He could have kissed her then - in truth, some part of her wished that he would - but he only said, “Then I envy you.”

“Save your envy,” Lagertha told him, before rising from the chair. “And save your strength. You may need it yet, if you intend to survive, Priest.”

He stood as well, although it obviously pained him to do so. Even wounded and half-clothed, he radiated a certain power that Lagertha recognized as magnetic and dangerous at once. “My name is Heahmund. I am the Bishop of Sherborne and I intend to do as God commands me.”

“Bishop Heahmund,” she said, holding his gaze, testing the weight of his name in her mouth. She could have said, ‘I am the Queen of Kattegat’ or ‘I am your captor’ or ‘I am destined to be your enemy and your lover and your downfall,’ but all she said as she turned to leave was, “I am Lagertha.”

“I know who you are,” he replied.

A small smile twisted Lagertha’s lips. Men always thought they knew so much. “We shall see,” she said, and left the Bishop alone once more.

 

HEAHMUND

It was hard for Heahmund to keep track of how many days passed as he lay in the tent letting his legs heal. The woman named Torvi brought him food and clean clothes, and tended to his wounds, but said nothing to him, even when he tried to talk to her. He recognized the hollowness in her eyes for heartbreak and over time, he was able to piece together that she was the wife of Lagertha’s son, Bjorn, who now chose to share the bed of another. He understood that she was not cold to him by choice, simply that she no longer had any warmth left to give.

As his strength returned, Heahmund began to walk a little each day. At first, he could only manage a few torturous steps before collapsing, but then one day he found he could make it across the tent and back, and a few days later, he ventured outside. The men glared at him as he hobbled past, some cursed at him or spat in his direction, but none laid a hand on him, and it quickly became clear that the Queen had ordered his protection. Every day he waited for her and every night he dreamed of her, but she did not come. The talk in the camp was that Ivar had sent his younger brother Hvitserk to the Kingdom of Frankia to seek the support of Ragnar’s brother, Rollo, who ruled as a Duke there. Heahmund didn’t know where this Rollo’s allegiances lay, but he knew that faced with a trained army of Frankish soldiers, the Northmen would fall. Lagertha would fall. _I must speak to her_ , he thought. _If she will not come to me, then I will go to her_.

He made his way across the camp as the sun was setting, until he stood outside the Queen’s tent where two shieldmaidens guarded the entryway. Summoning all the authority he could muster, he said to them, “I am here to see the Queen.”

“She is busy,” one replied, her face impassive.

“Go away, Christian,” the other sneered at him.

Heahmund looked at the ground, then in a voice that echoed and drew the attention of all within earshot, he called out, “Lagertha!”

He saw one of the shieldmaidens reach for her knife and he instinctively reached for his sword, before remembering it wasn’t there. He stood his ground anyway as she took a step towards him, and more heads turned to see what was happening outside the Queen’s tent.

“Let him in,” the voice from inside the tent broke the tense silence.

The shieldmaiden blocking his path glared at him a moment longer, then let him pass through. The tent was large, containing a table and chairs, several lamps burning low, and a real bed. The ground was covered with furs and in the air, Heahmund caught the rich perfume of scented oil. He suppressed a scoff. Even among heathens, it seemed, royalty demanded its due.

“What do you want?” The question came from the back of the tent, from a woman half hidden in shadow.

“I want to talk to you,” Heahmund answered her.

“What do you want to talk about?” she asked, moving into the light. Heahmund took in her crimson tunic, laced tightly up the front and fitted perfectly to her lithe frame, her hair half braided and half free flowing, her sharp eyes and strong hands. There was a grace in the way she moved, but also a quiet power. _A deadly power_ , he thought.

“Everything,” he replied. “God, faith, despair, hope…” He paused, then added, “Love.” He had resolved to speak to her about the battle to come, but now that she stood before him, he found himself speaking of everything but.

“Why talk about these things with me?” she asked.

“I think you too have lived many lives.” He took a step closer to her. “I think there is much we could learn from each other.”

Lagertha smiled faintly at this as she passed her hand back and forth through the open flame of a hanging lantern. “My husband said the same thing about a priest he brought to Kattegat a long time ago.”

“The apostate,” Heahmund said, then seeing that Lagertha had not understood, continued, “You mean the monk, the one called Athelstan.”

“Athelstan,” Lagertha repeated softly and something in the way she said his name made Heahmund quite certain that she had shared the monk’s bed. “Did you know him?” she asked.

“No,” Heahmund said. “But I know his son, Prince Alfred.”

Lagertha nodded, her eyes far away. “Yes, there was a girl.. Judith. She must be a Queen now. And her husband - Ecbert’s son - he raised the boy as his own?”

“So he did,” Heahmund affirmed. “It was his father’s wish and King Aethelwulf is a man of honour.”

“I would have liked to meet Athelstan’s son,” Lagertha said. “Even though I suppose we would be enemies.”

“Your time is not yet up,” Heahmund replied. “You may still meet someday.”

Lagertha stopped moving her hand and held it still over the flame as she said, “Bishop Heahmund, you and I both know that will never happen.” She met his gaze then and he could have sworn there were tears in her eyes. Without thinking, he closed the space between them, snatched her hand from the fire and used it to pull her body into his. He bent his head to find her lips, but she pulled back, searching his face. “Is this the price?” she asked.

“The price for what?” he rasped. He could feel her heat, see the rise and fall of her breasts, and it was all he could do not to tear the clothes from her body.

“We will have to fight again soon…” she said.

Heahmund understood her unspoken question. “You want to know if I will take up my sword and fight on your side against Ivar.”

“Will you?”

He had told Ivar it didn’t matter to him which side he fought on. Either way, he would be the hand of God, striking down the heathens. But now he saw that he had been wrong. It did matter. It mattered a great deal. “I will fight for you, Lagertha,” he told her. “I will die for you.”

This time when he brought his mouth down on hers, she did not pull away.

 

LAGERTHA

She had known from the moment he had shown up outside her tent, defying her guards and shouting her name, exactly what it was he wanted. And she had been prepared to give it to him, if for no other reason than to ensure his loyalty on the battlefield. But it was more than that. If she was being honest, it was what she wanted too. She had thought the exchange would be simple - _have sex with me and I will fight for you._ She would have preferred that. But he had said instead, “I want to talk to you.” She had almost replied, “Take off your clothes while you talk then.” It had made her smile to imagine it. Was this Christian destined to be her last lover in this life?

As he rambled on, her mind had flashed through all those who had come before him over the years. There was the boy she had lain with first who had paled at the sight of her virgin blood on his cock. There was the man she had become infatuated with when her village went raiding with his, the tallest man she had ever seen, with dark hair and eyes, who looked and fought like a wild bear. _Rollo_. He had a rough touch, but he had felt good inside her and when he had asked her to come back to Kattegat with him, she had agreed, expecting no more from life than this match that had seemed good enough. Then she had met a man who shone like a god, a man who would leave her changed forever. _Ragnar._ He had been the first to put his mouth between her legs and make her melt with pleasure she hadn’t known existed, the first to treat her as an equal, the first to want all of her - body, mind and heart - and the first to offer her the same in return. She would have been content to live and die as Ragnar’s wife, but fate had other plans.

“You mean the monk, the one called Athelstan,” Bishop Heahmund was saying. _Athelstan_. She hadn’t loved him the way Ragnar had, but he had been part of their family and the three of them had spent many nights together talking, drinking, and fucking, sometimes until the sun began to rise. Those were some of her sweetest memories.

Her hand was burning, but the pain barely registered. She was lost in the humiliation and heartbreak that had forced her to leave her husband and had set into motion the chain of events that had brought her here, to this moment. After Ragnar, there had been Sigvard, Earl of Hedeby and after Sigvard, Kalf, who sought to be Earl, but who had paid a high price for his ambition. Both men had betrayed her and both had died by her hand.

“We will have to fight again soon…” Lagertha said, struggling not to give in to the Priest’s kiss. Not yet. She had given in too quickly once before, to a man who had flattered her and given her pretty things, blinding her to the truth of what he was. _Ecbert_. The Christian King. He had dressed her in finery and made love to her, but hadn’t thought twice about slaughtering her people after promising them his protection. He was dead now too and she was glad for it. One less score to settle.

“I will fight for you, Lagertha. I will die for you,” Heahmund said. Where had she heard that before? _Astrid_. The thought of her shieldmaiden and lover, her closest friend and confidant in these last turbulent years, brought sudden tears to her eyes. Astrid had said those same words to her, and many others, whispered or sighed or moaned, words spoken in passion and in love. Now she was at Harald’s side, either by force or by her own free will - Lagertha could not be sure. Whatever the case, Astrid must have taken a risk to send the message that had warned them of Ivar’s plan to attack and Lagertha only hoped that she had not paid too high a price. Lagertha knew now that nothing worth having came without a cost. So she had to be clear.

She let Heahmund deepen his kiss, his tongue finding hers and his hands encircling her waist. It was only when he moved to unlace her tunic that she said, “I am willing to give you what you want, but you must give me something in return.”

“Anything,” he murmured, setting her breasts free and burying his face between them.

“I want your loyalty, Priest. I want… Ah!” Lagertha gasped as he caught her nipple in his teeth, but went on, “I want your sword at my side now and always.”

“Now and always,” he repeated, pulling his shirt over his head.

“Not just against Ivar, but against anyone who would move against me. Against your own people if need be.” She backed away from him, until she felt the bed behind her. “I want your word, Bishop Heahmund.”

She could see that this gave him pause, but his eyes were clear when he looked at her and said, “You have it.”

He peeled the pants she wore from her legs, leaving her naked before him. She was no blushing virgin, but as he lifted her onto the bed and spread her legs, she felt a pang of nervousness. There were plenty of men who cared little for the feelings of women and even a few who took a perverse pleasure in causing them pain. Lagertha was fully capable of defending herself, but as Heahmund opened his trousers to reveal a thick cock, long and hard and rising from his muscled torso, she knew he could hurt her if he tried.

She licked her lips and asked him softly, “Are you sure you want to sin again?”

He was above her, stroking the place between her legs that made her wetness flow and he smiled at the question. “Yes,” he answered, and pushed inside her.

It had been a long time since she had been filled up so completely and she drew in her breath sharply at the sensation, her palms pressing against the Bishop’s broad chest, as if she would hold him back. She looked up into his face, all angles and shadows coming together to form such beauty. _In a different life_ , she thought, _he could have been one of us_. She wrapped her legs around him and drew his warm lips to hers. Whatever had come before and whatever lay ahead, for tonight, he belonged to her.

 

HEAHMUND

He had committed this sin with enough women before to know the sweet anticipation prior to the act, the delirious ecstasy during the act, and then, inevitably, the crippling guilt that came after the act was done. So he fucked her as one possessed, hard and fast, losing himself in this forbidden lust that he could not resist. She was looking at him - really looking straight into his eyes. No blushing and turning away, no trembling beneath him and stifling of cries, which he was most used to. No, she kissed him with a passion that matched his own and then took him by surprise when she deftly switched their position so that she was on top of him. He reached up to touch her, but she laced her fingers through his and leaning forward, pinned his hands to the bed. She fucked him slowly and deliberately, rocking her hips to the rhythm of her own pleasure.

“Look at me,” she told him, when he closed his eyes. She would not allow him to escape into the oblivion of mindless fucking, would not allow him to detach from the body that moved inside her. Even here, even now, he remained her prisoner. _Let me be imprisoned then_ , he thought, as he felt her tighten and shudder around him, taking him in deep. _Let me relinquish Heaven, for I have never known Earthly pleasure such as this_.

The smell of her sex was all around him, heady and intoxicating, when Lagertha released his hands and let his cock slip from her wet pussy. She slid from the foot of the bed to the wall of the tent, where a sword rested in its sheath. She pulled it free and even in the dim and flickering light, he recognized it at once.

“I think this belongs to you,” Lagertha said, holding it upright, so that one side of her face was warm flesh and the other, cold steel.

“No,” Heahmund replied, following her off the bed. “Ivar had it made for me but it is not mine. My sword was christened in the blood of the martyrs and carries the sacred blessings of a generation of holy warriors. My sword is an extension of my arm and my will and it has always protected me.”

“Where is it now?” Lagertha asked.

“Ivar has it. I suspect he intends to kill me with it...” Heahmund was only the sword’s length away from her when she lowered it, touching the tip to his heart. “But my sword can never harm me…” She flipped the blade and raised it so that it pressed lightly to his throat even as he took another step towards her. “It can only bring harm to my enemies.”

“Do you want it back?”

“Yes,” he said, wanting nothing more at the moment than to be inside her again.

“Will you kill for it?”

“Yes,” he hissed, pressing forward, feeling a dark mixture of rage and desire rising within him. He forced his mouth onto hers, daring her to draw blood, and felt her relent. That fraction of a second was all he needed to twist the blade from her hand, turning her as he disarmed her, then pulling her roughly into his chest and closing his hand a little too tightly around her neck. He could feel her life force there pulsing wildly, just as he could feel the beads of sweat breaking out on her skin. Why did she incite him to this? He knew himself to be capable of terrible violence, but he had never thought to unleash it on a woman. Yet, this woman, this Queen, this Lagertha… she was not like any woman he had known before or would likely ever know again. Perhaps she saw in him a lover and a killer both. Perhaps she saw him for who he truly was.

Heahmund released his grip, replacing his hand with his lips, pressing them to the spot that would be bruised tomorrow. “Yes,” he repeated, his voice now a murmur against her ear. “But not before I am satisfied.”

She turned her face up to look at him and to his surprise, he saw no fear there. She walked the three paces to the table across from the bed and bent over its edge with her legs spread. Over her shoulder, she said to him, “Then be satisfied.”

It was a wanton invitation, lewd and beautiful at once. Grasping her hips with both hands, he drove into her hard from behind and felt her body jerk and tense in response, a short, sharp cry escaping before she could contain it. He wanted to shut her out, wanted to retreat to what he knew, to what was safe; to take what was offered without thinking, without feeling, and then, to seek forgiveness later. But he could not. Not this time. Not with her. Whatever had come before and whatever lay ahead, for tonight, she belonged to him. Heahmund buried his face in her hair and took a breath to steady himself, then said, “Look at me.”

She turned to face him and with the slightest smile, he cupped his hands under her buttocks and lifted her onto the table, knocking the cups and scrolls that had been left there to the ground. He leaned her back on her elbows and kissed her deeply, one hand planted on the table next to her, the other playing with her cunt until he found again that place that made her gasp and moan into his mouth.

Heahmund’s eyes were open as their bodies came together and he locked them with Lagertha’s as he began to fuck her with the same long, slow strokes that had brought her to climax once already. He barely knew her and yet, he felt he had known her for a very long time, had been destined to find her and love her, and maybe, to die at her side. _So be it_ , he thought as she sat up and wrapped herself around him.

“No guilt,” she whispered, as she enveloped him in hair and hands. “No regret,” as he devoured her with eyes and cock and tongue and teeth. “No fear,” as they were consumed together in hunger and heat. “Be satisfied, Priest.”

They exploded into each other like two stars colliding in the night sky, heedless of the histories that bound them and the chaos that swirled outside the tent. Tomorrow, the world would be new and there would be another chance for blood and for peace, for betrayals and beginnings, for life. None of it mattered now for the Shieldmaiden Queen and the Warrior Priest, Viking and Christian, past enemies and future legends. For tonight it was enough to find each other in the darkness and let tomorrow wait. Whatever had come before and whatever lay ahead, for tonight, they belonged together.


End file.
